From The New York Times, an interesting article about a woman who went to law school as a retirement activity, and is now fighting teardowns and McMansions in her modest subdivision in the Hamptons:

Ms. Konrad has achieved a level of unpleasant notoriety for her relentless and unapologetic campaign against a sacred cow in these parts: luxury real estate.

She has been called irritating, meddlesome, even crazy. To Ms. Konrad, though, the McMansions built by Wall Street’s titans are destroying life as she has known it for the half-century she has been coming here.

She is perfectly at ease in her role as the village nag.

“I seem like a very good target, a little old lady in white tennis sneakers, but they’re making a very grim mistake if that’s who they think I am,” Ms. Konrad, who is 81, said on a recent afternoon, savoring an ice cream cone and wearing a miniskirt over a brown bathing suit. “I’m contentious. I’m obstinate. I’m not going to give this up.”

Wagging her sharp tongue and applying the law degree she earned just five years ago, Ms. Konrad has accused village officials, builders and home buyers of corruption, profiteering and bad taste in court papers and in letters to The Southampton Press. (A sample of her acerbic style: She has described some homes here as “multimillion-dollar penis extensions” that will make a buyer feel as if “he has never left northern New Jersey.”)

Recently Chad Emerson blogged about the dangers of planning new development in areas where there are lots of lawyers. Now the neighbors are making themselves lawyers! Things get weirder and weirder...